So, the thing is that the Republicans really do want Trump. People (columists mostly) seem to be making up all kinds of bullshit to pretend that the Republicans could select another candidate if X happens, where X involves getting Democrats doing whatever the person writing thinks should be done. But it's all lies. Trump is what the Republicans want and his crimes are part of why they want him.

1: The point is Trump is not who the smoke-filled rooms of yore would have chosen, he's the preference of a bare majority of the primary electorate. The party elites would clearly have preferred De Santis, or Cruz in 2016, (though neither is who they would choose, I think, if it were entirely up to them) but they have lost control of the process.

I still think probably the biggest inflection point on the Trump timeline is when the Republican party decided not to steal the nomination from him in 2016. They could have done it, and they could have got away with it, but it definitely would have cost them the election.

And honestly, encumbents almost always win re-election. It would truly be bizarre for us not to embrace Biden in this context. The constant yelp of "he's old!" is just because there's nothing worse to yelp about. This is the stage of a re-election campaign where you yelp about the inevitability of the encumbent candidate.

2: And the party elites would probably be right that they could find a nominee who would be stronger in the general. The Republican electorate wants a slavering, rabid, wannabe dictator, but they'd probably vote for a softer stealth fascist, and a less out there candidate would pick up some votes that Trump can't get.

2. Winning a bare majority in an election where multiple candidates are allowed is a huge win. Trump is about as popular with his party as is ever seen in a two party system.

For 2024, if the party elites had a mechanism to pick someone other than Trump, they'd be foolish to use it. Trump would just run anyway as an independent.

The Republican elite has had two very good opportunities to kneecap Trump (the 2016 primary as noted above, the 2nd impeachment) and punted on them both. They don't want someone else either. Those who do, like Cheney, are actively thrown out of the party.

7: I think in both cases their first preference was "do nothing and let him implode by himself" and his not imploding is the cost of their cowardice, not their desired outcome

I was overconfident predicting 2016, but I was also mostly right. It did look like the Democrats were on their way to the demographic shift and permanent majority (and no Republican has won the national popular vote in nearly twenty years). Instead, Trump got a freak miracle victory and he was also the only person who could have gotten that freak miracle victory. Most Republicans like him for his shitty qualities, but there is also the fact that he pulled a very unlikely narrow victory out of a hat once and could maybe do it again. Of course they should go with him. Every other candidate would lose worse, especially as the youngs get serious about voting.

ISIMTHBB in 2015 or 2016 my industry's big annual conference, which always has an expensive speaker on the state of national politics, had Ezra Klein saying that Democratic presidents and GOP or split Congresses was going to be the norm indefinitely.

I always think of my high school AP History teacher, circa 1993, telling us that the days of two term presidents were over, and from here on out we'd see only one-term presidents. It was a valuable lesson about the value of extremely confident-sounding predictions.

8: There are people in the Republican Party who think like that, sure. I don't think they are the mainstream of the party. I think people who write "both sides" stuff are motivated to believe that they do represent the majority of Republicans.

Importantly, in most head-to-head polls no actual Democrat (as opposed to "generic Democrat" does better against Trump than Biden does.

I think both 8 and 12 are correct, and the difference depends in part on how you define "the Republican elite."

I think there are a lot of congressional republicans who would be quite happy if Trump imploded, but also don't see an easy path to displacing him.

I continue to believe that most professional Republicans would sincerely prefer that Trump go away, but they are willing to pay literally zero cost to make it happen. (This does not reflect well on them!)

There's clearly a split between (a) the group who love Trump for the spectacle and hate brown people and (b) the group who want low taxes on the rich and don't care about brown people. The median Republican may be in group (a) at this point, I don't know, but I do think the median elected Republican is still in group (b).

I think the biggest problem with the article in the OP is that it seems to be assuming that something has changed in the last ~10 years. It compares the Obama era favorably to this one more than once. But I don't see why. Candidates have been chosen mostly by primary since the 70s, right? What changed specifically in 2016, 2020, or 2024 specifically that made them notably less "democratic" than 2012 and earlier?

13
Importantly, in most head-to-head polls no actual Democrat (as opposed to "generic Democrat" does better against Trump than Biden does.

True, but how much of that is because of name recognition? If you picked a random Democratic popular governor and then put them in the news daily for three months, presumably that would change things.

That's just another of saying that incumbency matters.

One weird wrinkle here is that unlike in 2016, the Republican party did have a clear institutional lever to prevent Trump from becoming the nominee: the second impeachment. They chose not to take that opportunity.

And actively ejected or tried to eject those who voted to impeach.

Also that Christie didn't endorse Haley is wild. Like I understand that the Republican party doesn't have much institutional strength (see the Speaker nonsense) but they're not even trying.

I think there's something to what Yggles is saying here but fundamentally the issue is that partisan polarization is now extremely strong but the parties as institutions are very weak. American political parties have always been relatively weak so the recent change is really more in the level of polarization.

For example, there is not and never has been any way for a party to kick someone out. Anyone can register with any party and even run for office as a member of that party, subject only to state rules about registration and ballot access. The parties have no say or control whatsoever.

22: For instance see Lyndon LaRouche:

From when he first ran as a Democrat in 1976:

The Democratic National Committee asserted that LaRouche is not a Democrat, but the U.S. electoral system made it impossible for the party to prevent LaRouche followers entering Democratic primaries. LaRouche himself polled negligible vote totals, but continued to promote himself as a serious political candidate, a claim which was sometimes accepted by elements of the media and some political figures. In the end, LaRouche got 177,784 (0.91%) votes in the primaries.

And yet the Wyoming Republican Party did in fact kick out Cheney.

They held a symbolic vote to no longer "recognize" her as a member of the party but they can't force her to change her registration.

They also took away her birthday.

Silver's analysis re: Biden has been bonkers, and reading Yglesias, I finally understand why. Silver doesn't think he's advising voters; he thinks the Party is the relevant decision-maker. Silver is still dumb as shit, but now I understand the source of his error.

I don't, however, agree with Yglesias. Democracy has a lot of problems, but it happens to be a really good way to find out who people want to vote for. I am deeply skeptical that, say, Josh Shapiro would run better than Joe Biden in the fall -- and you couldn't convince me of it in the absence of a Shapiro campaign, which doesn't exist because (as Yglesias notes) Shapiro wouldn't win among Democrats. For that reason and others, I'm also skeptical that the Democratic Party elite secretly prefers Shapiro (though I know Yglesias does -- an irony given that Yglesias coined the phrase "pundit fallacy").

I also agree with Megan@9 re: Trump. Unlike Biden, I think Trump is disliked, but the Party elite still wouldn't dump him in a secret ballot.

Yglesias thinks he knows what voters want better than the voters themselves -- and that's not impossible, but it's not the way I'd bet.

Yglesias thinks the median general election voter significantly diverges from the median primary voter, and that's obviously true?

16: Candidates have been chosen mostly by primary since the 70s, right?

Yes, not sure of the entire history, but in Ohio 1972 was the first primary with Presidential delegates on it. It was quite a contentious issue.
From HST's Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail* re: some disputes over vote counting:
[Ohio Dem operative] to Mank: "This is your boss's fault--he should have known--you start electing delegates and you getthis kind of thing."
"Mank" being Frank Mankiewicz, McGovern's campaign chair.

*Not the most reliable source, of course. But I will take the opportunity to re-re-recommend Timothy Crouse's The Boys on the Bus (He was HST's "handler" from Rolling Stone on the campaign trail) which remains one of the best campaign/press books ever written. And does not seem nearly as dated as you would think.

I have no idea if Shapiro is considering for 2028 or not. He might be too short.

Saiselgy has had a running joke that "O'Malley would have won" in 2016. Maybe he actually believes it.

28: The Yglesian beef with Biden is not primarily that Biden is too liberal, and Democrats probably dislike old people more than general election voters.*

*But maybe I am projecting my own views here.

I think it's likely O'Malley would have won too. He didn't run in 2020. I think nominating Biden shows that lesson was learned.

31: Contrafactuals are easy. Especially about the past.

Anyway, after 2016 thru now, I'm frankly prejudiced against old white people. It makes me respect Biden even more as "one of the good ones."

34: You too.

I think the biggest problem with the article in the OP is that it seems to be assuming that something has changed in the last ~10 years. It compares the Obama era favorably to this one more than once.

Yes, my impressions is that, if there was an actual change at some point, it would have started before Obama in 08 (and that Obama would fit as a hybrid candidate). One way to see the difference is that, starting in '08 there are more Senators and fewer governors as leading presidential contenders (and I'm not entirely sure what is driving that). Both Carter and Clinton worked to build their profile as party insiders (before running as a semi-outsider candidate. For example Carter with the Trilateral commission and Clinton with the DLC. Both of which are different from Trump but also from, say, Warren (depending on whether your count her involvement with the CFPB as building insider credentials).

I don't know your age or race, but I'm sure you're O.K. too.

Absolutely he thinks O'Malley would have won!

On the one hand primaries forcing people to actually run is good, that's how you find out that DeSantis is actually a bad candidate. But the problem is that with increasing polarization the primary voters are just not very representative and aren't doing a good job picking candidates anymore. It's better for Democrats than for Republicans, because several of the early states (especially SC, but to some extent NV and NH) are relatively moderate and so do a slightly better job picking candidates. But as conservative and moderate minority voters increasingly switch parties, that advantage will go away.

Well, the Dems pushed back Iowa on the calendar so South Carolina can be #2 after New Hampshire. That's a good chunk of moderate minority voters who probably aren't moving soon.

The Dems tried to push back NH too but the Republicans who control state government weren't about to move the primary on their account. So now we get to vote but the DNC won't seat our delegates at the convention.

Probably for the best.

And I guess Biden won't be on the NH ballot?

Biden is... kind of doing a good job? Like, he's not the hopes-and-dreams Obamacorn but has gotten a lot of shit done? Democrats are supposed to not run the guy doing a good job? Because....

Anyhow, I think the answer is 2012, when the Republicans fielded a sensible-for-them Mormon moderatish guy who got pasted, and learned that whatever the evangelicals want they get, and changed the rules, so now they get Trump, because evangelicals love him for some reason that makes me think they're not actually very Christian. They're not running on DEI and anti-trans because their actual policies are popular.

No, Biden isn't on the ballot. But all the party establishment types have decided to go all in on (and spend a bunch of money on) a "Write in Joe Biden" campaign, which is kind of humiliating since Joe Biden is ultimately the one who made the call to trash our primary in the first place.

Now we've got a competing write-in campaign for "Cease Fire," which I don't expect to compete with Joe but which I am really, really hoping will draw more votes than Dean Phillips.

44.1: "because..." he's old.

That's the argument, he's good but he's too old, and should step down for someone similar but younger. It's a plausible argument, but also I'm a bit skeptical that someone younger would actually do better. That said I find Biden's disapproval ratings confusing and don't understand what people are thinking, so I'm not very confident in any of my opinions.

There isn't anyone similar but younger, because vast experience is what governing-Biden is all about. (There's a good argument to be made that Onion Joe Biden is the one who got elected. I hope that he'll show up in the re-elect too, along with Dark Brandon and the guy who called Bill Ackman an asshole.)

Last year I re-read the Biden chapters of What It Takes, the amazing book about the very not amazing 1988 presidential campaign. I totted up what happened to the other candidates: George H.W. Bush eventually won in 1988; he served his one term and lived to see his son serve two terms as President. The elder Bush died in 2018, the younger has retired to Texas, Biden is still going. Bob Dole eventually won a Republican nomination as his party's presidential candidate; he lost to Bill Clinton in 1996 and died in 2021. Michael Dukakis, the Democratic nominee in 1988, left public office in 1991 and is living in retirement. Gary Hart had foregone another term in the Senate to pursue his presidential campaign in 1988. He held special commissions under Barack Obama, but he never returned to electoral politics and is now retired. Richard Gephardt, who is about a year older than Biden, returned to the US House of Representatives after losing in 1988. He served until 2005, and is working as a lobbyist. Biden is still in public service. He entered Congress five years before Gephardt, stayed four years longer, served two terms as Vice President, and is now the incumbent President. He doesn't just take the long view, he has lived it.

As Joe Biden was beginning his first presidential campaign, Senator John Ossoff was just learning to walk. How many presidents has Biden seen get sandbagged by the Pentagon? That's why we got out of Afghanistan as early as we did. Republicans going after Griswold? Biden was chairman of the Bork hearings.

Anyway, Biden had an aneurysm in February 1988. If he had still been campaigning, he'd probably have died. As long as he stays healthy and alert, there isn't anyone similar.

But the problem is that with increasing polarization the primary voters are just not very representative and aren't doing a good job picking candidates anymore.

That's the Yglesian thesis, but how does the nomination of Joe Biden fit into that? Or Hillary Clinton for that matter? These are Democratic centrists who additionally have a pretty firm grip on the political center of the country.

Admittedly Hillary, like Obama, had certain personal attributes that were extreme by American political standards. But Yglesias doesn't seem to include Obama as one of the Democratic extremists, and in any event, he doesn't seem willing to step up and say directly that we shouldn't nominate women or Blacks.

Republicans (with the active connivance of the media) have sabotaged trust in all public institutions. The political parties aren't unique in that respect.

And the Democratic voters' preference for Joe Biden was an embrace of exactly the sort of centrism that Yglesias purports to favor.

47: I think Dukakis still teaches. He just turned 90 though. He's still advocating for stuff.

encumbent candidate (n): An incumbent politician considered to be an encumbrance to their party in subsequent elections. (portmanteau; first usage 2024).

Cosign 47, and thanks for the thoughtful details. Biden knows who to hire-- zero cabinet turnover, and his chief of staff's name basically doesn't appear in print, compare the Cheney or Trump admins or even Obama. Who knows how people will assess him come November, we live in a postliterate era. Pointing out that it's a mistake for the president to be just one one more celebrity is basically grandpa Simpson behavior. Taylor Swift could swing the election, none of these ideas matter.

The "bad nominees" phenomenon is relatively recent, from 2000-2012 elections pitted two broadly popular candidates against each other. Then 2016 was two very unpopular candidates, and this year looks like it will also be two very unpopular candidates. Biden in 2020 was more popular, but still 5/6 unpopular candidates is a striking trend. Of course, Trump is literally half of that data set.

I don't think Yglesias, or anyone else, is saying that Obama wasn't a great choice.

48.2: To the contrary, Yglesias is repeatedly on the record as saying that the Democratic party is much better off nominating candidates of color, who are often more moderate than white Democrats, and who are more able to move to the center on racial issues while remaining popular with the base of minority voters.

I would argue outsider candidates haven't become more common in the primary era. Goldwater was more of an outsider than any candidate since, and Roosevelt and Stevenson weren't candidates the party establishment were thrilled about (for very different reasons). Wilkie also hijacked the party to some extent. There weren't really any compromise candidates or pure party men after the 1920s.

50: I knew it felt wrong.

Unless I'm forgetting someone.

I think the established European parties with the least membership / activist / voter input into leadership elections have tended to pick a lot of complete nonentities and hacks with no stature or charisma. For example dozens of forgotten men who tried to unseat Merkel and Berlusconi. Olaf Scholz is an overpromoted small time pure hack who lucked out and beat someother losers. Not that membership elections and primaries have had a great track record in Europe either, but only these appartchnic types tend to be in a position to run. But Elly Schlein would probably never have had a chance if Italy hadn't started using US style open primaries.

I don't remember what kind of setup made Hollande a presidential candidate, but he's certainly a prime example of an overpromoted nonentity, and managed to completely destroy the traditional left in France.

"pure party men" is a little vague, what I mean is that from the 20s to the 60s, everyone in a contested primary was nominated with grassroots support and something like an ideological base, there weren't actually picked by a small number of party elders.

And if you had a process with zero activist input, IE something very different from the actual pre-1972 system, you could end up with some seriously unimpressive candidates, the Dem establishment seems to have the same attraction to mediocre hacks as their European counterparts. You think a 48 year old Obama could have been a candidate if a couple of senators and DNC types chose the candidate?

Obama can run again in 2028 if the Supreme Court says that you can't keep people off the ballot just because they are constitutionally prohibited from serving as president.

55: English incumbers everyone.

56: In Scholz' defense, Europe has run the "exciting German leader" experiment already. No need to do it again.

And honestly, incumbents almost always win re-election. It would truly be bizarre for us not to embrace Biden in this context.

AIMHMHB - there have been 27 US elections in which an incumbent was running for re-election, and he won in 18 of them. It's likely, but it isn't a near-certainty.

There have also been five elections in which two candidates were facing each other for the second time. In three of those cases, the man who won the first time lost the second time.

There have not really been enough cases in which an incumbent was eligible to run for re-election but did not do so (like LBJ in 1968) to draw any conclusions.

2012, when the Republicans fielded a sensible-for-them Mormon moderatish guy who got pasted

Not actually true! 2012 was a close election, and a very rare example of a president winning re-election with a significantly reduced vote (almost always a re-elected president does better on re-election than on initial election).

Obviously there's only been one president who served non-consecutive terms, but I don't know how many have tried and failed?

I think the only 20th century president who gave it a real go was Teddy Roosevelt. It's possible others may have considered it, but gave up early.

TR ran independent though.

I just had a quick look - I think Teddy is the only one in history who got as far as the general election in an attempt to get a non-consecutive second term, and then didn't win.

||
Things just keep on cooking.
https://www.reuters.com/world/pakistan-has-conducted-strikes-inside-iran-afp-report-2024-01-18/
|>

46: This isn't about his disapproval rating, but one of the things that people like G. Elliott Morris (who has replaced Nate Silver as the stats guy at 538--and you'd best believe Silver is on tilt about it--but is so far vastly less Twitter-poisoned) have been talking about with Biden's bad-to-awful head-to-head polling is that low-propensity Democratic-aligned voters (I believe in particular Democratic-leaning independent voters who didn't vote in 2020) don't like Joe Biden. Morris, who is a big defender of the merits of polling, seems skeptical that the numbers now will reflect actual voting intentions in November, and has been having a chilly but polite discussion with the Times' Nate Cohn (who seems both professionally and personally invested in the merits of the Times' polling, which has largely been bad for Biden) about it on Twitter.

68: I didn't even know they had beef.

Sure they have beef. You're thinking of India.

India has tons of beef, just not in a convenient form for eating.

69: I also didn't know that Morris and Silver had beef; no wonder he's on tilt. I've been off Twitter for a while but I'm glad the serious poll stats people are still having public discussions about the merits. My bias is towards Morris's position; let's see what things are like come May.

Speaking of the Democratic Party, I'm not a huge Carville fan but I have to respect the effort when he sees a sore on Trump's hand and speculates that it is a sign of syphilis.

OT: I took apart an reassembled the kitchen faucet, leaving it no worse than before.

74: that's impressive! Just for fun?

I had the wrong parts.

72: When he was at the Economist, Morris was pretty dismissive of Silver's "throw garbage polls in the stew, and my proprietary adjustment formula will make them meaningful". In particular, Morris was directly critical of including polls that didn't meet the AAPOR standards for methodology and client reporting, and Silver took the' criticism with the grace one has come to expect from him. (Morris implemented this change when he became the new 538 poll guy.)

Silver's really gone off the deep end lately, hasn't he? It's been remarkable to watch.

76 to 77.

78: yes -- https://jabberwocking.com/nate-silver-and-i-disagree-about-the-origins-of-covid/

How long will this wave of covid/flu/etc take to burn through population before I can go back to the bar without worrying too much about getting sick?

The major party nominees weren't exactly popular in the 1992 presidential election. I wonder how much better a third-party Trump would have done in 2016 than third-party Perot did in 1992. I don't recall* how Perot didn't end up running for one party or another.

*by which I mean, never knew because I wasn't following closely and was also a teenager

I recently ran across a 2020 post by Roman military historian Bret Deveraux on the problem of extreme factionalism in ancient republics and what lessons we can learn from that for the future of American democracy. It seems still relevant for the upcoming election, since he notes that Biden's general approach to the Presidency is similar to the approaches that worked in preserving the community's independence, self-governance, and integrity, while Trump's general approach is similar to ones that notoriously didn't.

69: Times' Nate Cohn (who seems both professionally and personally invested in the merits of the Times' polling, which has largely been bad for Biden) about it on Twitter.

Cohn does not get out of lane nearly as much as Silver, but I do think he has some of the same vibe going. In particular he tends to be quite negative on anything that brings up issues that might complicate an "Elections results demonstrate the will of the people and that will can be accurately assessed by polling" narrative. He has generally been dismissive of anything that highlights voter suppression or anything else that might confound that narrative. In particular he has been aggressively dismissive of Barton Gellman and his articles pointing out ways the election results might be subverted. Gellman's prescient Nov. 2020 article mentioned a number of possible scenarios including possible Supreme Court involvement*. That last did not materialize and Cohn tagged Gellman as an alarmist on that basis and has continued in that vein. My impression is that he really, really wants a neat tidy politics as a game scenario.

*They have in fact generally steered clear so far, but of course are getting roped in a bit on the prosecutions/removal stuff. Thomas/Alito are clearly chomping at the bit but have so not had much other support. In my current pessimistic state of mind (see border thread) I am thinking there are several ways they might actually be instrumental in a 2025 installation of Trump.
Scenarios:
-- 1) Biden wins EC with decent margin/multiple state buffer and Ds hold the House. Biden inaugurated, Supreme Court does not help Trump other than maybe a few thing s on the margins.
-- 2) Trump Wins EC by any amount. Trump inaugurated.
-- 3) Biden "wins" EC but Rs hold Congress. Some monkey wrench like a county refusing to certify or who knows what leads house to not accept one or more slates putting it to House vote by delegation. Trump inaugurated. SC upholds Rs/Trump on any challenged - I view that as quite likely in that case.
-- 4) Biden wins EC closely and Ds hold house narrowly. Some county/state malarkey as above. Some D state electors will be challenged and SC might well uphold challenge so that it goes to a House by delegation vote. Trump Inaugurated. (I think less likely that SC overrules initial House certification of Biden than in the easier subversion scenario in 3)-- probably quite fact dependent but I think there are scenarios where SC does overrule initial House vote. And they have an out by seeing that the House still gets to decide in the end (this will be dubbed the 'Constitutional Option')

Also some scenarios where State Legislatures muck it up for Trump even before things get to Congress. Once again I think a fair chance SC will go along with them if it is not too egregious.

Anyway. these are the odds that elite instructions and rich, powerful people are using in their calculations, not the straight polling. So I'd say something 75% Trump rather than 50/50 per current polls.

Sorry to trouble everyone's beautiful minds with my unhelpful pessimism. I'm attempting the mental equivalent of bleeding the patient to cure a fever. Also sparing my wife being the only target of my diordered thioughts.

83: The linked post is very good, and I hadn't read it before. Thank you.

Most people don't actually want to sift through the ranks of random governors and senators, identify which ones suit the moment, go volunteer for their campaigns, give them money, etc. What they want is strong parties to do that work and present them with appealing nominees. Instead, everyone is miserable, and it risks discrediting democracy.

It just feels like there is a lot to unpack here. The second sentence above, for example, doesn't flow inexorably from the first. Do most people really want a bunch of political elites telling us what to think based on whatever backroom decisions they made? I don't buy it. And I would hypothesize that it's not that people don't want to do their own legwork so much as that they/we don't feel capable of doing so. I like to think I'm pretty smart, but I'm also mentally and physically exhausted almost all the time--and that's with a pretty secure job and financial stability.

Going into the 2018 midterms, however, was probably my ideal political experience. We had a really large field of candidates (I think we topped out at 8) in my congressional district seeking to challenge the piece of crap incumbent, and a lot of local orgs willing to host debates. We expressed interest in volunteering for our top choice, whose campaign quickly welcomed us into the fold, made us feel like a meaningful part of the team. Our choice was decisively not the individual handpicked by the party elite. And I still feel really, really good about the guy we chose to back and like I genuinely got the chance before voting to really learn who he is and what he stands for. And I still have positive feelings for more or less all of his primary opponents in that race, except for the one anointed by the strong political party.

I agree that we're all miserable. Not because we don't want to be more involved, but because the opportunities to get involved are few and far between.

86: Locally, we have a state Democratic partyy and a lot of activists. Its resolutions and endorsements do not seem to be able to influence legislators or Democratic primary voters. Working on Single-issue ballot initiatives seems to be the most effective activist outlets.

...but because the opportunities to get involved are few and far between

I think you aren't in a swing state.

I'm not clicking through, so apologies. Dems had a crowded field in 2020, and Biden's polling and showing was very weak in the early going. Then he got an endorsement from a kingmaker, and won a big enough victory in SC that the younger candidates competing with him in the moderate lane dropped out. I don't know but I imagine a bunch of different people of standing interacted with them and their people, and encouraged these decisions. OK, it wasn't exactly a smoke filled room, but it also wasn't not The Party Decides.

Trump executed a hostile takeover of the Republican party in 2016. I don't think the ptb wanted it, but I also don't think they had a really effective means to prevent it, especially once it became clear that it was really happening.

In 2008, if the party (as it exists, not as pundits imagine it) would have selected Clinton. McCain then would not have gone with Palin but instead would have chosen Romney, and they'd have operated at a different level in the financial crisis in the early fall and won the general.

89.last: I strongly do not believe all of that counterfactual. I think HC wins, but more closely.

McCain then would not have gone with Palin but instead would have chosen Romney, and they'd have operated at a different level in the financial crisis in the early fall and won the general.

Huh? Obama won by 7 points popular and 192 votes electoral. The national mood was in "countervail the party in power" mode with the economy in the pits, ergo hostile to the GOP as a whole, just as in 2006; that's not a gap a different VP pick and better messaging would have overcome.

Also I don't see how McCain could have positioned himself better on the financial crisis - how, against the bailouts or something? He voted for the bailout, and Bush signed it into law. More House Republicans may have voted against it than for it, but that's not much to hang one's hat on. (Nor do I see a different positioning earlier allowing McCain to vote differently in October.) At the time it was a "what the current government is doing" thing, even if it quickly got hung onto Obama once he was in office.

McCain was going to lose to any nominatable Democrat, and -- realizing his desperate straits -- he made a desperation play in selecting Palin. I'm thinking that Palin makes even more sense as a Hail Mary in a campaign against Hillary.

Because counterfactuals are so much like analogies, Unfogged would have become a better place if they had been banned long ago.